Belt sanders are known in which an endless abrasive sanding belt passes around a driving roller and a driven roller, and the driving roller is rotated by means of a toothed belt driven by a motor to cause the sanding belt to move over a generally flat base surface located between the driving and driven rollers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,174,226 discloses a handheld belt sander which has opposed first and second sanding surfaces.
JP 2000-280157 discloses a belt sander which provides a pivotable cover which selectively prevents access to an upper sanding surface of the sander. However, this arrangement suffers from the disadvantage that the accuracy with which sanding can be carried out is limited, for a given size of sander.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention seek to overcome the above disadvantages of the prior art.